


key around his neck, skateboard in hand

by Irratia



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reunions, Swearing, alex is the light in willie's life and you'll understand why, basically me just going off on a tangent about what i think willie's life was like, i love them your honour, it's just caleb being a fucking dick but, lots of probably bad metaphors i'm proud of, mentions of his car accident and kind of psychological torture maybe???, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28632174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irratia/pseuds/Irratia
Summary: He told himself he wanted to be alone, that things were best that way. But he couldn’t help feeling it pressing in on him, leering at him from the shadows, in classrooms, or at lunch, and watching everyone around him laugh with other people while he sat alone. He felt alone sitting atop the stairs and watching his parents play with his baby sister, and felt alone sometimes too, on the beach, watching friends and couples pass him by, ignoring the lonely figure in the sand. He felt lonely and chased adrenaline highs, tried his best to take his lack of contacts as a sign he could live life to his heart's desires.And he did. Skating and skipping school, smoking pot, making out with the occasional guy or girl he met on the street. He chased thrills and lived everyday as if it might be his last.And then ‘88 rolled around, and he chased one thrill too far, and he died.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 101





	key around his neck, skateboard in hand

**Author's Note:**

> It's the obligatory Willex reunion fic!  
> And I made myself sad writing it!! Cannot recommend listening to Far Too Young To Die by Panic! At The Disco while writing about boys that died far too young, but I did so that's my own fault...  
> I don't really know what to say this fic was a whole emotional rollercoaster of me swinging wildly between hating and loving it and now I'm just unsure but I hope y'all enjoy!!

Willie wasn’t always lonely. Alone, maybe, but not lonely.

Growing up with two loving, although somewhat detached parents had him doing his thing from an early age, and with it being the late 1970’s, nobody was bothered by the small boy on the too big, rundown skateboard he’d found during a yard sale, making his way through the streets for hours on end. His parents were calm and easygoing people, only scolding him when he came home too late or skinned his freshly healed knees once again.

He liked the kids he went to preschool with, enjoyed running around and playing pretend with them, as any child would, really. He liked the kids in elementary school, too. They hung out and got ice cream and skated together. And then he started getting older, and realizing things.   
He started admiring girls and boys, caught himself watching intently when a male classmate laughed, staring at them from afar. He knew, in a way, that this meant something, even if he was only 11 years old. And then he started paying more attention to the news, and saw the death tolls and the fear mongering and the hatred, and grew afraid.

From then on Willie liked being alone. He liked being able to be himself, and not fearing judgement from others, sought safety and security in hours spent on his own with the board under his feet and the wind in his hair. He liked sitting at the beach until the stars came out and the moon cast a silvery light on everything, dancing atop the waves. 

He spent hours alone, when his parents went out, and kept being alone when his baby sister was born. And he didn’t mind, not really. He had security, and his skateboard (a new one, that he was incredibly proud of), and didn’t have to worry about anything. He was alone, too, when he bought a single golden earring and sat himself down in the bathroom in the middle of the night, a hot, disinfected needle in hand and stared at his reflection in the mirror, contemplating the idea. 

His parents saw it, of course, and knew what it meant. He felt lonely, really lonely, for the first time when his mother’s eyes filled with tears, and she stroked his hair, and told him she feared he’d be alone forever, leading a lonely life. Because until then he’d chosen to be alone. And he knew, deep down, that his mother loved him, and only worried for him, didn’t mean to make him feel this way, but she did.   
He felt a little less lonely when he saw the older man smile at him in passing, when he pushed his hair behind his ear. Felt more lonely when he saw the numbers and Reagan on TV. Was alone when he skated along Hollywood Boulevard, or sat on the beach. 

He told himself he wanted to be alone, that things were best that way. But he couldn’t help feeling it pressing in on him, leering at him from the shadows, in classrooms, or at lunch, and watching everyone around him laugh with other people while he sat alone. He felt alone sitting atop the stairs and watching his parents play with his baby sister, and felt alone sometimes too, on the beach, watching friends and couples pass him by, ignoring the lonely figure in the sand. He felt lonely and chased adrenaline highs, tried his best to take his lack of contacts as a sign he could live life to his heart's desires. And he did. Skating and skipping school, smoking pot, making out with the occasional guy or girl he met on the street. He chased thrills and lived everyday as if it might be his last.

And then ‘88 rolled around, and he chased one thrill too far, and he died.  
He wasn’t alone, when the car hit him.   
Far from it, actually, as people crowded around him, desperately trying to resuscitate him, begged him to stay awake and stay there, told him that he would be okay.

And still, he had never felt more lonely than he did, when he stood in an unseeing crowd, looking at himself on the gray asphalt, his limbs at odd angles and blood seeping through the cracks in his helmet, darkening the street and sticking in his hair.   
He watched as the driver that hit him broke down, and wailed because she didn’t want this, and watched as she was driven to the hospital after him, and he still stood on the street when the crowd had dispersed and the only proof of what had happened was the stain on the asphalt and a discarded skateboard. Willie grabbed it, and ran. 

He felt very little, in those first few days after his days, mostly just empty and occasional rips of devastating despair. And lonely. Because he had chosen to be alone for a lot of his life, but now he had no other choice but to be.  
He couldn’t tell his parents sorry, as he watched them break down in their house, or hug his sister when she cried, lying on his bed, begging for him to come home and teach her how to skate because she didn’t yet understand he wasn’t ever coming back.   
He didn’t attend his own funeral, but wandered through his house, after. He watched, tucked away in a corner, as the woman whose car he’d skated in front of rang the doorbell and explained, with a shaking voice, that she’d seen the death notice in the newspaper. And he watched as his parents cried, and cried, and the woman did too, and he felt lost and lonely as they hugged and shared their pain, while he stood in a corner, unable to move or to breathe or to touch them ever again.

He didn’t come home again for too many years after that night. 

Willie spent a long time on his own after his death, and he began to figure the whole thing out. He took his loneliness and his despair and his fear and wove a cape out of it, pulling it around himself as protection from what might come. He wore his cape, and struggled to get up on his feet when it became too heavy. It ripped at him when the winds were too strong, and was too hot, when the sun beat down. So he decided to take his loneliness, despair and fear and the anger at himself for not being more careful, and melted it down into a mixture of dark and gray and pain, and forged that into a key. It hung on his neck alongside the key to his house that he’d never taken off, and, over time, merged with it.  
Willie kept it, even after years, to remind himself of what he lost and what he wanted. The key and it’s chain was heavy, wearing him down, pulling on his neck until he learned to hold his head high and smile again, greet the morning on the piers and skate in places he never got to see when he was alive.

Willie wore his key around his neck, dangling it above his heart, and he kept moving.   
There was nothing else to do, because he was alone, but that was what he’d always wanted, right? To be alone, to be free to do what he wanted whenever he wanted, to live into the day without planning, not weighed down by responsibilities. And so he did. He faced his new life with the key around his neck, and his skateboard in hand, and nothing more.

He still followed the developments in culture, sneaked into movies and parties, attended a few award shows. Ran down halls in hotels so expensive he’d never have set foot in, if he was still alive. Started cultivating more hobbies. He taught himself how to use computers at night in libraries, and read the newest books, and sat in classes at Colleges for fun. He took planes to parts of the country he’d never thought he’d be in, and sang loudly on beaches not worrying about anyone hearing him. He skated through art exhibits and museums, watched couples fall in love and get engaged, argue and break apart. Saw things he’d rather not have, and realized things about himself along the way.

In 1992 he’d become strong enough to interact with the living world, and expanded his wardrobe, got himself an array of skateboards. Found a black ring to slip onto his right middle finger, as though anyone could see him and give him a nod for it the same way some had done with his earring, back when-  
He didn’t dare think of the past, didn’t allow himself to do so, only looking forward to the next challenge, the next trick and thrill, because now he couldn’t hurt anyone, nor could he hurt himself.   
Willie lived every day knowing there would be an infinite number of them, doing what he pleased, and only that. He enjoyed it, too, forgetting the weight around his neck more often than not, and hoping things would stay the same forever.

In 1994 things changed. He skated along the beachpromeade,he sun and stopped, as he often did, to watch one of the performances put on by musicians, or pantomimes, to get a bit of money. He’d collected enough coins from sidewalks and vending machines that he could always deposit a good sum into cups, or hats, or open guitar cases when no one was looking. He watched, usually for a few minutes, but that day he stayed longer.   
They were good, a group of four boys, not much younger than him before-

They were a group of young boys, with obvious talent and passion for what they did. Willie, same as the crowd around them, watched.   
They were having fun, they loved doing this, the air around them practically vibrating with joy. And in the looks they gave each other, the bright smiles and bumped shoulders and shouts of delight, he saw how close they were. How alive they were, and how happy to be there and together.

And suddenly he felt the key around his neck, and couldn’t breathe and there was _pain_ , all through his body, all the way down in his soul, a pain he hadn’t felt in years. Willie fled the scene, trying to keep his head held high and the weight from pulling him under, but in a matter of seconds his key had cracked, and the cape had returned and it almost crushed him. 

Caleb Covington found him like that, and took pity.   
He spun a tale of promise, of fun and light and company. Told Willie he’d never be alone again, that the crushing weight of the cape could be lifted for eternity. That he could have something to do, could still skate for forever, but that he wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. Offered warm hugs and smiles, spun his web in warm honey tones, driving out the dark.   
And Willie took the offer.  
Caleb had been right, and Willie enjoyed himself. And time began to fly, a blur of colours and dances and costumes. Of glitter and songs and company, finally, eternally, company. Willie lived his afterlife, and did what he loved and time flew by and he didn’t mind, didn’t have to think or bear his pain or worry about the web of endless repetition he’d been drawn into.

___

And then he meets Alex and time stops for the first time in years.

He doesn’t plan to do it, doesn’t think, because he hasn’t had to do that in years, and so when he crashes into the blond boy from behind, the world he’s lived in until now crashes too.   
Alex is different.   
Not in a bad way. He’s excitement, and light, and new, a change and so much more, and, god. Alex is beautiful. Willie notices it immediately when they meet, because it’s impossible not to, and he tucks his hair behind his right ear, and sees the way Alex’s eyes flicker to the movement, and the tiny spark of recognition in his blue-green eyes make Willie feel more _alive_ than he has in… a while.

Willie takes to that, reaches out for that feeling, for that spark of life in him, and clutches it tight. He wants to keep it. And so he sticks with Alex, who’s look of gratitude makes that spark grow warmer, and who’s sarcasm and wit and questions and smile make it keep growing. Willie clings to it with a desperation he doesn’t recognize in himself anymore, and he decides to nurture it.   
When he returns to the Hollywood Ghost Club that afternoon, after talking to Alex for hours and hours, puzzling over the things the other ghost has told him, things suddenly seem… a bit too bright. Too shiny, too polished. He puts it off, it’s just him actually paying attention to his surroundings again. But the show is louder than he remembers, and longer too. Because he hasn’t thought about it in a while, he tells himself. Nothing more.

Willie meets Alex again. He feels like he needs to, like he can't do anything against the _pull_ he feels when he thinks about him. The pull he feels when he sees him, the sun’s gold looking almost dull in comparison to his hair, the green in his eyes sparkling like gemstones. The pull he feels until they stand close together, until they touch.   
It’s as if his heart is pulling him towards a new center of gravity, that he feels off-kilter without Alex near him. 

And Alex is spectacular. Willie watches his movements, his fiddling, the way he seems to always hold his shoulders with tension, the clenched set of his jaw, and decides to do something against that. He takes Alex to do things that used to make him feel alive, before. That feeling is futile in comparison to the way the spark flares up when he does them with Alex, to the warmth that spreads through him when they scream together, and when he sees Alex smile. They hang out in the museum, and go to the beach, running their hands through the warm sand, feeling the ocean breeze on their faces and the sun beat down on their necks.

Willie feels like it hasn’t been that long since he’s done this on his own, but it must have been, because he forgot how alive it made him feel. The spark grows and grows, the warmth in his core spreading, whenever they brush hands and Alex smiles and ducks his head at compliments, or blushes, or jokes.   
Alex makes Willie feel more alive than he thinks he’s ever felt, and so, when he comes to him, looking somewhat hurt, and introducing his friends, who watch Willie with intrigued curiosity, he helps. Of course he does.

Caleb helped him, so Willie’s sure he’ll help Alex and Reggie and Luke as well.   
Willie looks forward to the evening’s performance for the first time in… a while. And it’s amazing, at first. With the boys, with Alex, at this side, it feels exciting and new and warm, although that might just be Alex leaning into his side. Willie has a hard time not looking at the other boy the entire time, because he could spend hours studying him. Watching his eyes change colour with the lighting, his hair fall into his face and the casual, non-thinking way Alex pushes it back. Watching his cheeks colour, and his smile light up a room.

The evening is fun, and Caleb is kind and welcoming, and Alex is warm. Willie’s heart races and his pulse shoots up when he looks at Alex.   
“There’s a lot to like here,” he says, and smiles, and watches recognition dawn on Alex’s face, and the spark grows so hot that it’s painful, and he flees.   
He catches his breath, outside, returns when he feels like he can breathe again without molten metal pouring through his veins. He decides to dance, too, and it feels more exhilarating than it has in too long, with Alex watching him, and he loves it, and loves doing it and loves feeling _alive_.

And then things shatter.

Alex dances with Fuego and Dante, and Caleb watches Willie with cold eyes and forces him away. It’s always been a thing, with Caleb, that he could force Willie to do anything he wants, and the ice cold gaze dampens his spark, and pushes it back down to a tinier thing, again. It almost goes out completely, when Willie returns, later, trying to find Alex, and catches the marks on their skin and Alex lingering just a second, before they disappear.   
It feels like bleeding out again, in a way, when he loses that spark after that night. It’s weird, Willie thinks, how he’s never noticed how distanced they all are from each other in the Club. They perform together, and they help Caleb, but there really isn’t much more. It’s friendship, but not the way Luke, Reggie and Alex’s is.

In the days and week following that night, the key around his neck begins weighing on him again. And it hurts. Everything hurts. There’s loneliness in the way he can’t laugh with his colleagues at the Club, and the way he skates through empty museums or sits on the beach without someone - Alex - by his side.   
He watches them, tries to, thinks maybe Caleb won’t notice, but of course he does. 

And Willie is alone again. And feelings come in, old and new. Loneliness, and fear of what might happen. And anger.  
Anger, hot and burning. At himself for leading Alex to Caleb, for being so trusting, knowing what the man is capable of, because he’s seen it happen, so, no, too many times. And anger at Caleb Covington, for locking him in, and stealing his soul, and robbing him of his spark. There’s guilt, wrecking, painful, drowning guilt.   
He disobeys Caleb, and sees Alex, and tries to fix things by distancing himself. But that’s worse. It hurts, when Alex’s face falls.   
“Wow… that hurts,” Alex mumbles and Willie wants to scream that he agrees, but all he wants to do is help. He flees, again, like he’s done so often, hoping the distance will help. It doesn’t.   
It hurts him, and it hurts Alex, and wasn’t there a time when he promised himself to stop hurting others?

Willie, feeling robbed of his second life, decides to take his chance.   
It’s not easy, at all. It’s hard, and terrifying, because he doesn’t want to put them into more danger than he already has. He blurts out the truth and holds back tears, and watches Alex in pain, and it’s almost as if he feels the jolts himself, because the gravity of the situation is overwhelming and the pain of knowing he’ll lose Alex again, one way or another, is more than he can even try to comprehend.   
Willie drives a bus into the desert and steals a jacket, and none of it thrills him more, makes him feel more alive, than Alex pulling him in and burying his face in Willie’s shoulder.   
There it is again. His spark. A tiny, barely glowing thing, but it pulls him in, and pulls him to Alex, and it hurts. Because if things go right, he’ll never have it again.   
He makes an impossible promise, and smiles because if he doesn’t he’ll break down. He does, anyway, the second he doesn’t see Alex anymore. 

And then there’s a new pull. A painful one. And he’s ripped from the street and into a cold, dark, isolating room.

“William,” a voice he once perceived as warm drawls, when he comes down on the ground gasping. Willie looks around, sees little more than a shadow.   
“You were so promising, William. Never questioned anything, your mind only set on skating as much as you could. It’s a wonder dying didn’t put you off it.” Caleb snaps his fingers and suddenly there’s light again, bright and blinding.

“What do you want?” Willie demands, struggling to stand up, because the key around his neck is pulling, pulling, pulling him to the ground. Caleb clicks his tongue disapprovingly.

“I know what you did. Your futile little attempt to save that boy,” he spits it out like venom. “And his friends. It won’t work, don’t you know that?” Caleb comes closer, eyes cold and boring into Willie like daggers. He squats down, next to where Willie is still struggling to heave himself off the floor.

“I own your soul, boy. I know what’s happening to you. It hurts, doesn’t it? To know you failed, and that it’s your fault. That you’re once again causing pain. That you’re lonely again. I’ll take your little flame and snuff it right out,” Caleb says. He leans closer, brings up a hand to Willie’s face. The leather of his gloves is cold, and he brushes, slowly, over Willie’s cheek. Tears disperse in the air, when Caleb shakes them off.

“I’ll give them a chance, you know? I’m not an awful person, despite what you might think. You’ll just have to hope the boys aren’t dumb enough to refuse. Not that you’ll ever find out,”

“What?” Willie rasps, his voice thick with the tears he wasn’t aware he’s shedding.

“Catch on, William. You’re stuck here, with your thoughts and your guilt, and without your soul,” Caleb says, as if he’s telling him to remember what to get from the supermarket, as if it's casual and nothing more. Willie watches as the man stands up, and smiles down at him.

“Please,” he whispers, not knowing whether he’s pleading not to be left alone, or pleading for Alex and the others, or just saying empty words. Caleb ignores it, stepping away. There’s a door, Willie realizes, let into the wall and nearly invisible. Caleb makes his way to it, deliberately slow. He opens the door, but Willie can’t, physically can’t, get up. Caleb turns around, satisfied smirk on his face.

“Oh, and William? Don’t make too much of a fuss, you’ll have eternity to spend in here, after all.”

The door shuts, and darkness falls.

Willie stays on the ground, all fight leaving him. He turns on his back, the cold of the concrete seeping into his bones. His spark is gone, and his illusion is gone, and all he’s left with is a pitchblack room, and loss, and loneliness, and guilt and pain. So much of it. He cries. Curls up into a ball, to ward himself from the cold seeping in, but it’s also inside of him, where his spark used to be. Empty and hollow, cold. He’s lost his life and his family. He’s lost his soul. He’s lost his spark and he’s lost Alex. And now, finally, he thinks, he’s lost hope. He loses the sense of time as well, there in the black room, crying, trying to breathe. Trying to fight the icy chill from settling.

Eternity is long, longer than what he realizes it must have been, when suddenly the cold ebbs away. It’s still chilly in the room, and the pain is still there, dulled to a constant numbness. But the cold is gone. Willie feels like he can move again.   
It takes long. Even small movements hurt and exhaust him, but he makes it over to where the door must have been. He expects it to be gone, but feeling his way along the wall with stiff fingers, they slip into a miniscule crack. He pulls. It opens.   
Willie stumbles out, confused and alone, the key still heavy around his neck, his spark still gone. But the cold darkness isn’t there to paralyze anymore. He stumbles and lurches on cold feet and weak legs through corridors and hallways he doesn’t recognize, until he does.

This is still the Hollywood Ghost Club. He wonders whether or not this is a trick. He wonders through the halls, seeing familiar faces who pay him no attention. They seem on edge.

“Willie?” he spins around. Fuego stands in the hallway, looks at him, confused but relieved. Willie tries to straighten his back, but sags against the wall instead.

“What’s going on?” he asks. Fuego doesn’t come closer, watching him warily. There have been incidents in the past where some of them disappeared without a trace. Willie guesses Fuego hadn’t expected to see him again.

“He’s gone.”

“What? Who?”

“Caleb. We haven’t seen him in days,” Fuego explains. 

Willie gapes at him. This explains things, but raises more questions. But it offers him something. A chance. To escape, and to try and figure out his unfinished business because accomplishing that is his only option to maybe see Alex again, if things went well.   
Willie takes the chance, because even if Caleb finds out, what’s he going to do? Hurt him more? The pain of his original death doesn’t compare to how he felt in that room, and maybe Caleb will be fed up enough, that he’ll just snuff Willie out of existence entirely.  
He somehow makes his way to his room, grabs his skateboard and pulls on a sweatshirt, and poofs out. 

It’s painful, and never has been. It sends searing pain through his limbs and his skull, his center. It’s as if something is fighting in him, to keep him at the Club, to prevent him from leaving. His eyes water and his vision swims, and it burns through him, but he makes it, against whatever is trying to hold him back.   
Willie doesn’t think, but ends up in front of the Santa Monica Museum Of Modern Art. It sends a shockwave through him, seeing it, now open. The shadowy, empty remnant of Alex’s laughter rings out, and he flees.  
Willie reappears where he met the other guys for the first time, tries to flee again, struggling against the hurt and ends up on the beach he and Alex used to sit by. All the memories of the other boy, of what could have been, press down, and he’s panting, out of breath from effort that’s entirely unknown, and so Willie takes a walk.

The sun shines down on him, mocking him in it’s warm and golden glory, while he wants nothing more than to curl up and cry, or scream, because this _hurts_ and there’s nothing he can do about it. He walks for what feels like hours, his feet finding their way to a street that he thought he’d forgotten.   
He stops in front of a house he hasn’t been in in over 30 years. 

It looks almost the same, with newer cars standing in the driveway and different curtains. Distantly, Willie wonders if the heavy, heavy key around his neck would still twist in the lock. He ends up staring at his childhood home until dusk starts to settle, and the door opens. A woman that looks to be in her early forties exits, a teenage boy trailing behind her. She stops, taking a deep breath in, and stares at the sky. Willie _knows_ her. 

He watches in shock as she turns to the boy, her son, he thinks, who’s stopped and types on his phone.  
“Willie, come on, you still have homework to do,” she calls and Willie almost crumbles to the ground, as the key regains its weight tenfold. Willie, the other Willie, groans.

“Mom-” he starts, whining in a way that reminds Willie so much of himself when he was younger. His sister looks back at her son.

“Sweetheart, please, not today,” she says, and her voice cracks slightly, and the boy looks guilty immediately.

“Mom-,” he starts, voice softer and more quiet. She smiles and holds out one arm, and he presses into her side.

“Your Uncle Willie would have loved you,” she tells him. Her voice becomes thick, and Willie steps closer. His- his nephew looks at his mother. At Willie’s sister, who’s all grown up and older than he’ll ever be.   
“You’re a lot like him, you know? Of course you, do we all tell you a lot.” She laughs wetly.

“Are you angry at him?” young Willie asks, after a moment. It’s obviously something he’s never asked before, Willie thinks, because his sister’s eyes widen. She takes a shuddering breath, looks to the sky again.

“No, sweetheart, I’m not. I don’t think he really thought about what could happen, mom says he always was that way. It was just bad luck.”

“And you still love him?” Willie’s nephew asks, squeezing his mothers hand. She smiles.

“Yes, of course,” A tear rolls down her cheek, and Willie wants nothing more than to reach out and brush it away, but he can’t. “Let’s get you home now, you still have homework,” she says, brushing it away herself, and cracking a small smile as her son groans and clambers into her car.   
Willie stays standing in the driveway, long after they have departed. The house looms before him. He hasn’t been here in... over thirty years. The key, the damned key, still fits in the lock.

Willie doesn’t make it far. He sees the living room, in other colours and with new furniture, and his parents, grey and wrinkled, comforting each other. They’re not alone. His sister isn’t. They’re still mourning him. He doesn’t know today’s date, but has a suspicion. He knows he should have come here sooner.

The key around his neck, the loneliness and pain of recent loss is still there. The weight of the older loss as well. But he’s not alone with it. His parents share it with him, and his sister shares it, and in a weird way, so does his nephew. The woman who struck him with her car probably does too, if she’s still alive. He never thought of it this way, that the loss he experienced is different, but in a way also the same loss his family has gone through. And suddenly the feelings don’t weigh on him as much. They hurt, still, and he feels guilty for avoiding this for so long, and dumb, for not thinking of it like this, but he doesn’t feel like they might ruin him anymore.

And he realizes something. The pain of losing Alex is there, harsh and there, but he isn't alone in sharing it. There’s one other person who feels it, too.

___

Willie slowly steps up to the house. He’s been here before, but only for short amounts of time and too weighed down by worry and guilt to appreciate it.It looks warm and inviting, and through the windows he can see into a living room, that’s lit with golden light and a family dancing, laughing.  
He recognizes Julie, because after all that Alex had told him, it’s impossible not to know who she is when she bounces around with big curly hair and a radiant smile on her face.   
He wishes he’d met her before, because now it feels too uncertain and too daunting. He wants to talk to her, everything in him screams to do so, but not today. He’s not going to ruin it for her, if she can feel happy.  
Another time maybe.

The knowledge he might share his feelings with her helps already.  
Willie turns away, unable to look at her for longer, and walks away, missing the way she stares out the window, and her eyes growing wide, and her screaming for someone. 

He’s almost turned the street corner, when there’s a whooshing sound somewhere behind him, and he stops at the sound of a terribly familiar voice.

“Willie?” Alex asks, soft and tentative and Willie turns and sees him, standing under a street light in his stupid zipable shorts and his pink shirt tucked in them, the fanny pack strung over his shoulder.   
He stares, takes in the way Alex looks at him, as if he can’t believe he’s here, and the few strands of golden hair that don’t seem to want to stay in position slowly moving into Alex’s eyes, and he takes it in, takes _Alex_ in, and then he’s moving, running, pulled like by a riptide into the open sea of loud and warm and cold and painful feelings.   
Alex moves, too, and they crash together the way waves meet rocks in a storm. 

Willie grabs at Alex, clutching onto his shirt like his life depends on it, because it feels like it does, and feels the weight of Alex’s arms around his shoulders, the pressure of his face in the crook of his neck, and he buries his nose in Alex’s shoulder and breathes him in. Miraculously, they don’t lose their balance, but stay there, like this, holding onto each other for a while. 

“How are you here?” Willie finally croaks out, and realizes that he’s sobbing, and suddenly his chest hurts and he’s heaving out sobs and can’t breathe because Alex is here, and he doesn’t know why, and he fears that this is all a dream. Everything narrows down on this, and then he’s on the ground struggling to breathe air he doesn’t need and he doesn’t even dare look at Alex, because what if it isn’t Alex, his Alex, and just a cruel trick of Caleb’s?

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here” the other boy whispers, trying to soothe him, and then it’s there again. His spark. Warm and glowing and familiar and _alive_ , and Willie cries harder.   
“How are you here?” he repeats, and feels Alex’s shoulders shake with the other boy’s sobs.

“I don’t know,” Alex answers, voice thick, and he cards his hands through Willie’s hair, and Willie holds on so tight he fears he might hurt him. They sit on a deserted sidewalk as the neighbourhood around them settles for the night, and hold onto each other, and cry.   
Time slips through his fingers, once again, because he doesn’t know how much of it passes, and that makes him panic, because he doesn’t want to lose that, lose anything, again. He recoils from Alex, needing space and tries to see the answers in the sky, but the clouds have shifted and block his view, and his spark is there, and Alex is there, and it’s too much.

“Willie?” Alex’s voice is high and worried, he follows after him, and kneels in front of Willie, taking his face into his hands, softly, after hesitating. Makes Willie look at him, and focus. The worry in his eyes is almost too much, because Willie wants nothing less than to make Alex hurt again.

“I’m fine, just overwhelmed,” he assures, clutching at Alex’s hands, as if losing contact was the end of the world. It feels like it might be.

“The Orpheum wasn’t our unfinished business, we don’t know what is. But Julie saved us, see?” Alex says after a long moment of silence in which they just stare at each other, taking the other in. Willie’s eyes slide to where the mark should be. It’s gone.

“That’s impossible,” he breathes. Alex lets out a humourless laugh. “Tell me about it.”

Then he sobers again, his eyes trailing over Willie’s form, and he gnaws on his lip, a fresh layer of shiny tears brimming in his already red rimmed eyes. “Willie, how are you here. It’s been days without a sign of you, I thought-,” Alex’s voice cracks.

Willie reaches out, this time, taking his hands off Alex’s, who still cradles his face oh so softly. He brushes a thumb against the wet lashes, feeling the droplet on his fingertip. Alex looks at him, with an expression that makes his chest constrict and his heart race and his spark glow. “I thought I’d lost you.” Alex whispers.

“You haven’t,” Willie assures, and watches Alex blow out a breath and nod. “But how are you here?” he repeats, much lie Willie did only moments before.

“I don’t know. Caleb he- he put me in a room, for eternity, but then I- I don’t know. I got out. Apparently he hasn’t been at the Club for days,” Willie says. 

Alex’s face darkens at that, and confusion crinkles his eyebrows. “Are you okay?” he asks, softly.

Willie stares at him, jaw going slack. “Why would you worry about that?”

“Because I care, about you, Willie,” Alex snaps, suddenly, and his voice is determined, but there are tears in his eyes. “I care about you, so fucking much. And I hate that Caleb owns your soul, and that he locked you in a room, and that he made you hurt, because it hurts me! I hate that I don’t know how to help, and that I thought I’d have to spend eternity without you, because he wouldn’t let you cross over. I just-,” he breaks off in a shuddering breath, the fight that was in him a second ago leaving him just as suddenly. He looks away from Willie, takes another shaky breath.

“I know,” Willie says. His spark is burning up again, hot, but not unpleasant. There is something between them, the unspoken feelings that have lingered there almost since their first meeting. He doesn’t think they need to be voiced, doesn’t want to voice them for fear of breaking whatever moment this is. “I know, Alex. I thought- I thought about you, a lot, in that room. And it hurt so fucking much, because I thought I’d lost you either way, and with Caleb- I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to cross over. I- I can’t-” he breaks off, too.   
His voice cracks and a fresh wave of tears burns in his eyes, and he feels like a tornado raged inside him, leaving behind a mess of emotions that he’s too exhausted to clean up. There’s only one thing untouched, and that’s that spark. It feels like life. 

Alex takes his hand, threading their fingers together, and turns it over so he can see Willie’s wrist. The stamp shimmers there, and Alex runs his fingers over it, his touch light and soft. They don’t talk. Willie leans forward, and knocks his forehead against Alex’s, and so they stay like that, with Alex’s fingers warm on his wrist and their heads together.  
“I saw my sister today,” Willie says, after a while. Alex looks at him from under his lashes, his fingers continuing their lazy circles on his skin.

“She has a son, and she named him after me. My parents still live at the same home I grew up in,” Willie continues. Alex’s eyes search his face, his expression is worried and curious. Willie doesn’t know where he’s going with this.

“She can’t even remember me that much, she was only nine when I died. And she still named her son after me. He reminds me of myself, kept whining at her the same way I did at mom, when I was younger,” he’s crying again, and Alex pulls away, and his face softens and he looks at Willie with sympathy and knowledge shared pain and so much fondness that it makes Willie feel almost uncomfortable. The spark keeps growing.

“I haven’t been paying attention to time much, since I died. Only since I met you, do I think about it again. But I’m pretty sure today’s the day I died,” Willie says.

“I think my sister and my nephew visited my parents today because, 32 years ago, I didn’t think about them or me, just wanted that adrenaline, and now they still think of me everyday, and I think of them, but they don’t know. I promised myself I’d never be so careless again, and to not hurt anybody again, and-,”

“Willie, don’t do this to yourself, okay? Not now, we can work through it later. I still haven’t seen my family,” Alex interrupts, voice still soft.

Tears run down his cheeks, and he can’t really see Alex through the sheen on his eyes.

“It’s all my own fault, though. I didn’t think ahead with my death, and didn’t think of my family, because it just hurt watching them and so I fled, and with Caleb I just didn’t think about time, and I promised, to be more careful, but I still got you all stamped and-” his own sob cuts him off.

“Willie,” Alex repeats again, his voice wavering. “Us getting stamped wasn’t your fault. We don’t blame you. It was Caleb who decided to do that, and it was Caleb who stole your soul and probably has some fucked up magic to ruin your perception of time, and Caleb, who locked you away, okay? None of this is your fault. I don’t think I ever want to see my family again. I don’t think they changed, and even if they did it was too late. You don’t have an obligation to see them, because they’ll be none the wiser.” Alex grits the part about his family out, and Willie reaches out. There it is again, sharing pain, even if it isn’t the same.   
And Alex, lovely, beautiful, wise Alex, is sharing the weight of it with him.

He lays his hand on Alex’s cheek, brushes away the tears. Alex’s hand comes up to cover his own, and he intertwines their fingers, turns his head slightly to press his lips against Willie’s palm. They mirror their earlier position, only switching roles. Lapse into silence again.   
He watches as Alex’s eyes once again settle onto the purple stamp on his wrist, that’s shimmering faintly. Willie waits for what comes next, caught up in a confusing maelstrom of feelings and warmth, memories of the cold and dark and loneliness, and the moment, where he feels warm and exhausted, and deep down still incredulous at Alex's continued existence. At Alex, in general.

Alex, who’s eyes flick up to Willie’s, a blush spreading over his cheeks, before he wraps his hands around Willie’s, still on his face, and gently pulls them down. Willie doesn’t have time to wonder and fret about this, because Alex twists their fingers together, and leans down, pressing a soft kiss to the stamp.   
Willie can’t help the soft gasp he makes at the contact, and feels his face heat up, and the spark _grows_ .

“I’m not quite there yet, and I don’t think you are either, but I will fall in love with you,” Alex says, still holding onto Willie’s hands. He looks at Willie, eyes shining bright and green under fluorescent street lamp lights, and even though his face is puffy and his eyes are red he has never looked more alive, more beautiful, more Alex.   
Willie squeezes his hands, in awe of Alex’s bravery, in awe of him, and certain in returning the sentiment, and he knows, that if he chooses this, he’ll never have to be lonely again.   
The mark on his arm begins tingling, and suddenly the spark explodes inside of him, warmth and love, and life spreading through every fibre of his being.   
The mark, the stamp begins tingling, and they stare at it, then at each other, illuminated by the golden light, as it floats up from his skin, and dissipates. The heat of the spark settles in his bones, and Willie knows, suddenly, what this is.

“My soul,” he whispers, staring at Alex, in awe. Giddiness, overwhelming giddiness starts seeping through cracks, and he feels a smile creep on his face. Alex looks at him without understanding.   
“The spark- you,” Willie needs to catch his breath, he feels so alive, and is so unused to it. “My soul. It’s back.”

Alex stares at him, jaw going slack as he understands, and then they’re surging forward to meet each other in a hug. Willie laughs, for the first time in days, and Alex does too, and they both start crying again, tears hot against Willie’s cheek, and the warmth in him, the life in him, his _soul_ , almost vibrates with the joy he feels. They pull back, Alex looking as incredulous and happy as Willie feels.

“Are you sure?” Alex asks, and Willie nods, and then Alex kisses him.

If he thought he couldn't feel any more alive even in death, he was wrong, because Alex’s lips against his make his entire being glow. He’s not there yet, but Alex is right. He will be in love with him. He kisses back, hands around Alex’s neck, and they’re still sitting on the sidewalk, and there are still too many things to worry about, but he doesn’t mind, not right now.

There are only three things that matter.   
One: Alex is there, Alex makes him feel alive, Alex is kissing him.   
Two: His soul is his own again, warm and comforting and his _own_ , in his own body.   
Three: He might be alone in the future, but he’s not going to be alone. Not now, not for eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> ... don't know what to say about this one except fuck caleb covington from the bottom of my heart.  
> also thank y'all for reading i hope you liked it!  
> If you feel like chatting, about jatp or in general, you can find me on Tumblr as [on-irratia](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/on-irratia)  
> have a good day/ night/ rest of time! :D


End file.
